I often think about how spaces shape human experience. I read a lot about the subject of space (I write “a lot” to lend this writing a colloquial flavor).
Sometimes I consider how digital interface can be extrapolated to inform physical spaces. (Or the other way around.)
The spaces we build are complex. To build them often takes long years of study at the University. But why complex. The have acoustic qualities, for example.
Pedestrians, for example, might carry a cup of coffee to a wide median and sit in a garden and watch the traffic on either side go by (to write “go by” is not a grammatical nicety, but “go by” does have acoustic quality). In this case, the coffee drinkers would have to drink their beverage amidst the noise of automobiles, maybe even trucks and motorcycles. (In this case, I’m avoiding the subjects of smell and watery eyes.)
Th solution, of course, is to install structures that will slow down traffic (speed bumps, for example, or expensive-looking, multi-colored cobble stones) and make passage through this space anomalous, special, or privileged, or something to avoid by drivers or a means to some significant end, such as nearby parking.
“I’m going to park and grab some coffee. I’ll join you,” Henry says.
You, who are drinking coffee in this median garden, this special place, this destination of city dwellers, say, “Okay. Don’t rush.”
The road is divided from the cafe’ garden by a walk about ten paces in width (soon, trees will be planted, which is another way to slow down traffic and ease the noise). So, you had to yell over the rose bushes to Henry; you had to yell past a couple walking their Dalmatians. This is a busy space; it’s a space that’s acoustically sensuous.
But you’ve just come home. (Don’t worry, this is just a time shift: it’s to an hour in the past). And you understand acoustic sensuality. You even like the way acoustic sensuality sounds, so much so you’re looking for an opportunity to deploy the word in conversations at parties. As a music lover, you can block out the other instruments and listen only for the percussion. You’re a skilled listener. You’ve listened to every layer of your favorite music.
You’re also a gifted reader. You disassemble the metaphors of poetry–even the most complex poetry, the more complex the better–quickly–wood=skin; moon=insanity; a fungus cupped in a tree hole=ingratitude or political infiltration.
You understand acoustic subtlety. You close the car door, turn the key, and open the front door. You walk in and run your finger nail across the cold stillness of a bar chime you keep in the foyer and say, “I’m home.” What light there is there; what crystalline octave to the many noted bells and how the sound accumulates in that small space like a mountain of crumbling salt and then diminishes to sparkle and 1 and a two and the minimal measure of the sharpest sharp thing.
Soon you’ll be having coffee with Henry. That entrance was an hour in the past. You’ll soon be at the median cafe’ and you’ll watch the slower traffic over the orange and blue cobbles and the couples walking their dogs, and the hummingbirds, maybe even butterflies, and you and Henry and your closer companion will point and say, “Time for wine, time for beer, time for bells.”
